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Chapter 1: What the Corner Threw

Nine forty at night, the corner of Maple and Grand, and the signal pole has been arguing with a bottle cap for ten minutes.

⟨Character 1⟩: You’re doing it again. Out on the curb with the cap, like the lights owe you an answer. By the time I finish this page the only thing on this block that sleeps will be the man who builds it.

⟨Character 1⟩: Maple goes green, Grand goes red, and then the little one on the pole by the lot does that flicker thing. You tap back twice and it calms down. I’ve watched it from the window three nights running. You know I don’t come down here to say this twice, so hear it once.

⟨Character 1⟩: A signal is a machine on a timer. The timer lives in a grey box and the box has no feelings. You are not fixing it, you’re keeping it company. Fine. Company is cheap. Sleep is not.

⟨Character 1⟩: You feed that cat on your own plate and now it sits on the curb like a landlord. Rue. That’s what you called it, and it answers. A cat that answers is not on a timer either, I suppose.

⟨Character 1⟩: A minute. I go up and I don’t come back down. I mean it, one minute and this curb gets quiet on its own, with or without me holding the cap. Rain later, my knees say so.

⟨Character 1⟩: The orange sawhorse on the lot blinks straight into my kitchen. That one is a night light with opinions. It gasps, then it sits at half bright. I know gasping. I cough like that on a Tuesday.

⟨Character 1⟩: You want it to tell you how far to the tracks without hopping? Then it asks first. Look, it blinked before you moved. It asked. That’s more manners than most people bring to a meeting.

⟨Character 1⟩: Long slow siren, back behind the rail crossing. That’s an ambulance and it is not where it should be. It’s asking. Every light on this corner just went red at the same time. Even the little one by the lot. Huh.

⟨Character 1⟩: I came down with the plate. Some rice and what was left of the curry. Don’t make it a ceremony. Sit on your curb, eat it standing up, tell the pole about the siren, then clock out. That one in the lot has been gasping all week.

Chapter 2: The Wrong Turn Call

At half past ten the orange lamp on the corner stops blinking and swings its lens down toward ⟨Character 1⟩ like a head turned to listen.

⟨Character 1⟩: The big orange one has gone still. That is not a timer. A timer does not look at a man sorting a blue folder on his stairs. Now the reds are lighting up in a row, down the gable and along the rail, all breathing at once like a row of little fires.

⟨Character 1⟩: Girl. If your pole is receiving something, say so now. That slow cloud of red is not a pattern I have seen on my street. Every one of them is coming up soft and going down. A row of them answering something. A row of them asking.

⟨Character 1⟩: I brought the file. Client site, three pages, done by dawn if the phone stays quiet. It won’t. You want to know the weird part? I am standing on my own steps waiting to hear what a traffic light has to say, and the poll on my docket put that at zero.

⟨Character 1⟩: The reds have all stopped breathing now. One by one they let a slow line of green walk down the gable toward the tracks. That’s not the grid. The grid never walks. Go on then, answer it, since it is asking you and not me. Just do it before the phone in my pocket rings and I have to pretend I am asleep.

⟨Character 1⟩: If that light by the lot is gasping again, I will hear it from my office window. It does that when it is worried. Two nights this week it gasped. I noticed it is on my way up the stairs, so I noticed it. That is the whole story.

⟨Character 1⟩: So that is how it goes. I check the build, the room goes black at the edges, and every lamp on Maple sits at half. It is a phase, this. Rain later, knees confirmed. Get the plate when you are done talking to the red. It will want to be thanked, no doubt.

⟨Character 1⟩: Ten fifty. My own night light, the one by the door not numbered in any plan, has decided it hears everything. Fine. Stay odd. Sleep can wait the length of one blue page, and tonight it looks like a long page.

Chapter 3: Green All the Way to the Reeds

A blue light on the stone lot, and the sky going grey at the edge. The white ambulance sits parked, doors open and shut already, the gurney rolled away under the hospital awning and everyone inside gone quiet.

⟨Character 1⟩: The little one by the lot has stopped gasping. It’s just sitting green at half bright, like a man catching his breath on the porch after a long walk. Two clean blinks, quiet, then stays. That’s better manners than my morning emails.

⟨Character 1⟩: I have the rest of the curry, warmed a little on the stove, and the porch light on for the walk back. Never mind the build. Three pages, the client can wait till after breakfast. Even pixels know when something’s finished. Besides, a phone that rings at midnight is not my favourite siren anyway.

⟨Character 1⟩: And the woman dispatcher, the one with the hard voice and the worn lanyard. She asked for the sign twice, didn’t ask for your name once. Two minutes off the radio, then she shut the file with a small sound and said the word I won’t try to spell. Sleep, she said. Sleep. It’s a reasonable idea at last.

⟨Character 1⟩: All twelve pole leaves along the rail did their slow curtsy and went dark, one corner after another, while the young one in the uniform waved, then looked embarrassed to be waved at back. Trust. A small strange gift and a green left lane three. The boy was wrong once. Trust does not break over that.

⟨Character 1⟩: So. Lights down Maple. Sidewalk empty. Plaza lamps dark. You climb the stairs, sleep till the sun hits the kitchen tile, and I don’t make a fuss before noon. Here. Small plate. One signal goodnight. A girl on her curb at dawn, and a fat brown light on the lot still waiting to be asked. Rain later. Knees confirmed.

⟨Character 1⟩: I’ll leave the porch light on. Not because you asked. Because the city’s asleep and someone in this house might as well be the one to keep watch.